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Friday, June 30, 2017

When I went through and downloaded pictures from our hike on Wednesday, I was planning to make this just one post. But even picking just a “few” out of the 120+ pictures I took on our 14.5 mile hike, I ended up with 19 pictures for this post so I decided to divide it up into two days.

I’ve mentioned before that Harry and I are working on become “46’ers”. Those are people who have hiked all of the 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks (over 4000' elevation). Last year we were able to do five high peaks in the month we were here, but this year we are only going to be here two weeks. And on top of that, it has rained almost every single day. So this past Wednesday’s hike, Seymour Mountain (4091' elevation), will be our only high peak of the year. That makes seven completed out of the 46 so far.

It was also our earliest hike! The trailhead for Seymour is close to Tupper Lake, which is a little over an hour’s drive away from where we were meeting our hiking friends. And that was about a half hour away from where we are staying. And we were supposed to arrive at the trailhead at 7 am! So our alarm was set for the crazy hour of 3:45 am.

haha You can see that Harry is clearly not awake in this picture. It was taken about 5:30 am.

Maybe a little more awake here at the trailhead as we were packing up to start the hike.

Although the hike in all is a long one, a little over 7 miles each way, the first five or so mile portion of the hike is relatively flat.

There are several streams to cross.

And lots and lots of MUD.

Luckily our boots are waterproof because we would have had wet feet otherwise.

We were making great time for the first five miles – about 25 minute miles.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Since we are only going to be here two weeks this year, we knew it was going to be a challenge to get some hikes in, especially given the rainy weather we have been having this year so far. So far we have lucked out with two good days. The second one came this past Saturday when we hiked up Lyon Mountain. It’s a bit longer than our first hike at about 3.7 miles one way, and the elevation of the summit is 3830 ft.

The word of the day was WET! Well, wet and MUDDY! It rained overnight Friday, and even until 5, 6 am it was still raining lightly, so the trail was extremely wet.

For a lot of it, we felt like we were walking through a shallow creek. It was fun though, just muddy.

Harry and Bonnie…

Our whole group on the summit…

Bonnie got another great shot of Harry and me on the summit!

And of course, more gorgeous views. Supposedly you can see Montreal in the distance on a clear day, but it was too hazy this day to see that far.

We still got some great views.

Tomorrow we hope to do our third and final hike for our stay, and our only high peak this year!

Monday, June 26, 2017

If you love maple syrup – the real stuff! – you may know that upstate NY is a great place to get it. We usually buy quarts of maple syrup as we need it, but they sure don’t give it away. So while we are up here this year, one of the things we wanted to do was buy it at the source. So last week we took a drive with my mother and stepfather to a local place that they like that sells maple syrup – in all its forms!

It was another rainy day, so it was a good day for doing this kind of activity.

They had many variety of maple products, so we had to exercise a little self-control.

We were surprised to find out that it was more cost effective to buy maple syrup. A half gallon of maple syrup here cost roughly the same amount of money as a quart in a grocery store somewhere else.

So we stocked up!

Afterwards, we headed for lunch to a place called Valcour Brewing Co. The restaurant has an interesting history, as the building it is in is known as the “Old Stone Barracks”. It is the last remaining structure remaining from an Army barracks built in Plattsburgh in 1838.

I wanted to get more outside pictures, but it was raining a bit when we went in, and pouring by the time we were coming out, so I couldn’t.

Harry got to try one of their dark brewed beers, and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal.

Friday, June 23, 2017

So far since we have been up in the Adirondacks, the weather has been rainy, but yesterday we finally had a gorgeous day and we took advantage of it to enjoy our first hike of the season – up to Balanced Rock. We parked near the trailhead on the road and could see our destination – that bald faced area right in the center of this photo.

And here we go!

Adirondack hikes are very rocky and “boulder-y”. They always involve a lot of climbing.

Although I am not a lover of heights, I don’t usually mind them here. It’s a little bit of a mental thing. I have to just think about which route to take up, or down, and just do it. I can’t think about the fact that I am climbing up “such and such” feet. The only time it really bothers me when it is close to an edge with a wide open vista, but that doesn’t happen very often. Thankfully.

And then of course after climbing up an area, there is often the opportunity for a great shot!

There were several places on the hike where we had great views of the rock slides on Cascade. We did that one a couple years ago. That was actually Harry’s first high peak.

Of course the best part is getting to the top. We had to be careful as we walked around because there were some huge crevices. We would go to step over a “crack” and look down to see this huge drop! In this pic Harry is hanging his feet over the edge and there is about a 10 or more ft. drop there. That is why I am hanging on to him!!

Love this pic of me! Being on top of a mountain always makes me feel so alive. Like I’m just celebrating life!

Another of my favorite pictures from this hike!

After a nice break it was time to head down. Some of the climbing spots on the way up were a bit tricky on the way down. You have to take your time and choose your footing carefully. Our friend Bonnie got this great shot of my mother, Harry and me coming down one of the more challenging spots. Mom is going down and Harry and I are waiting our turn. (Bonnie also took the previous pic of me right before this one.)

And then we were past the climbing spots and into the woodsy walking parts. All in all the hike was a little over 3 miles. A really good distance for our first hike of our visit here. If the weather cooperates we hope to get another hike in tomorrow and then a high peak next week. Fingers crossed!

Monday, June 19, 2017

When we set up our schedule to be in Peru to visit my mother, we were happy to see that our arrival date coincided with our niece Hannah’s tournament in Burlington, VT. We just had to leave Earlton a day early so we could go over to VT on Saturday.

Bright and early Saturday morning, we were picked up by our ride (AKA my mother and stepfather) and made the short trip to the Cumberland Head ferry. The quickest way to get to VT is to take one of the three ferries in the area. You can go across the bridge but that adds a lot of driving time to the equation.

The ferry is a very common way to get across Lake Champlain so they run very frequently, maybe every 15 minutes. We had only parked in the loading area when we could see the next ferry coming in. (You might have a bit more of a wait at the Port Kent ferry because the trip across from there takes almost an hour.)

Once we were across, we drove to my sister’s hotel and dropped off Andrew. Then it was off to the soccer fields.

I took a lot of pictures, but I will just add this one to show what a gorgeous day it was. We lucked out!

Our niece played extremely well, as did her team. After three very hard fought games, they came away with a win and two ties. If they had won the last game, they would have gone to the championship game, but even so, they had a great weekend to end their season.

As much as the soccer, we enjoyed spending time with my sister and her family. It was a lot of fun to cheer Hannah on, as well as enjoy a lot of quality chatting time. A great weekend!

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Yesterday was pull out day from Earlton! Usually we are sorry to leave there, but with everything that happened earlier, it kind of left a bad taste in our mouth, so we weren’t sorry to say goodbye to the place. In fact, I didn’t even take a pullout picture. haha Although that probably had more to do with the fact that it was raining. Again.

Last year, when we headed north to Peru, we were accompanied by our niece Hannah. This year it was her younger brother’s turn to hitch a ride. We are all heading over to Burlington VT this morning where Hannah will be playing in a soccer tournament.

Even though we started out in rain, by the time we got into the Adirondack Park, it was just cloudy. The roads were even drying.

Didn’t get too many nice mountain views yesterday though.

Although our departure was in rain, setup was dry. So that worked out ok.

Andrew and I played a few games that I keep here for the infrequent times when we have young company.